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It is a bit funny how a city - Miami - can be a big market in one sport and a small market in another.

Its also funny how the same city can change market size without an appreciable difference in relative population size. Detroit and Philly were small market clubs and Cleveland was a large market club in the 90s.

I say if a team goes 5 years without a 500+ record they lose revenue sharing for the next 5 years - Pittsburgh would've been without for well over a decade so far under that plan. Now that would be an incentive to at least get competent GM's in place - if Tampa can compete in the AL East there is no reason for KC and Pittsburgh to be such basket cases for so long.

I thought teams make the big bucks from their television network contracts. Heck, some teams could turn a sizable profit even if the stands were totally empty all season long, I'm told. Of course, the networks don't want to pay big bucks for a crappy "product", either.

Then there is the incentive that teams that make the post-season get bonus money for that, and more of it the farther they advance in the post-season. So if you can sniff the playoffs it works to your advantage to field the best team possible.

I say if a team goes 5 years without a 500+ record they lose revenue sharing for the next 5 years - Pittsburgh would've been without for well over a decade so far under that plan.

The problem with this is that it inflates the salary structure for average players (which I doubt MLB wants) and it also punishes true rebuilding. If my team sucks for three years but I hire Andrew Freidman to perform a full rebuild, I'm probably trying to win. But it would be counterproductive for me to go and sign Marco Scutaro and Shane Victorino to try and get to 82 wins.

Maybe something more like UEFA's Financial Fair Play, where teams are only allowed to be so many games under .500? That would allow teams some breathing space to suck, but also compel them to improve, at least a little bit.

By MSA, Miami is #8, ahead of even Atlanta, Boston, and SF-Oakland. By city, it doesn't rank very high, lower than Columbus OH, Louisville, and Omaha.

NBA must use one list and MLB the other. Though the Lebron bashing theory rings true.

My guess is that they use a complicated formula that counts all sorts of factors. Miami is #8 in MSA, the Miami MSA is 11th in metro GDP, and by per capita income it's 132nd in the country, ahead of only Tampa and Pittsburgh among MLB markets. One cost-of-living index puts Miami at about 8.5% above the national average (Tampa is roughly average, Pittsburgh is about 6% below the national average, St. Louis is the cheapest MLB city at about 11% below average).

None of these numbers is definitive, but Miami's combination of a low income plus high expenses explains a good chunk of why it underperforms its population total as a MLB market.

Toronto and Washington have seen very big jumps. But according to Cots/b-r, Braves payroll is down $6 M this year and is their 2nd lowest payroll since 2007.

On the other hand, there's no way you could ever claim that the Braves didn't bother to field a competitive team and just collected the revenue sharing.

I think you'd have a hard time making that claim about Toronto either. Yes, they finished 4th lots of times but in two of those years they did so while winning 85 and 86 games. All told they are a couple of games over 500 since 2004 (and +261 run differential? man that's a sub-pythag team ... must be the revenue sharing laziness showing up in close and late situation). They just got stuck in the wrong division at the wrong time. They might have dominated the AL Central.

The Nats were essentially an expansion team so I cut them slack on payroll in those early years.

The problem with this is that it inflates the salary structure for average players (which I doubt MLB wants) and it also punishes true rebuilding. If my team sucks for three years but I hire Andrew Freidman to perform a full rebuild, I'm probably trying to win. But it would be counterproductive for me to go and sign Marco Scutaro and Shane Victorino to try and get to 82 wins.

But if you're really 'rebuilding' -- do/should you care about revenue sharing... or I guess a better way to say it - should we?

Choices have consequences -- so if you make it to year 6 of completely sucking, even though you 'organizationally turned a corner' by hiring a Friedman in year 3 of 6 sucking, well, you shouldn't have stuck with Littlefield for three years.

Since we're talking about a 30 member club of very, very, very rich people all of whom are already getting plumb, plumb public goodies -- I have no problems being the tough love conservative in this instance and saying that at that some point, you need to stop sucking/pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

With absolute sympathy for the Royal/Pirate fans -- and I think most of them sort of know and agree with this anyway -- no amount of revenue sharing is going to allow them to overcome bad orgs making bad decisions.

Revenue sharing should serve as incentive to the small market teams who get it right - A's, Rays, etc - not a sop to the sad sacks that can't and don't.

5 years seems reasonable to get it right.... stop sucking, and your reward is getting back on the teet. Till then, it's weening time.

If you are rebuilding, you are going to care about revenue sharing at the end of those five years because presumably that will be when you want to be good.

Also, I wonder if your system would just encourage more Marlins type one-year binges, followed by a purge.

Well, it's John's plan, not mine :-)...

But I guess I would probably do something like a year-to-year tweak/reaccounting rather than a strict 5 on/5 off... Haven't really thought it through completely, but I guess I would say that I would fashion revenue sharing something like how soccer leagues handle where you play - at some point, you have to demonstrate you're 'earning it'/putting it to good use.

I do think you might be right about the binge and purge -- I'm not sure exactly how to deal with that... maybe some combo formula - nothing complicated - but just something that takes into account trends, yearly performance, and running cumulative performance.

I mean, I wholeheartedly agree that we don't want to see the pirates continually chasing a Matt Morris near the end of the line or whatever... I'm just saying that at some point, it's probably best to really 'punish' bad orgs who just don't get better. In the long run, my hope would be that it would actually drive bad owners to sell the teams to better owners.

</i>5 years seems reasonable to get it right.... stop sucking, and your reward is getting back on the teet. Till then, it's weening time.</i>

But cutting off the funds after 5 years of failure would seem to simply doom those teams to eternal ineptitude while, from the Union's perspective, taking potential employers off the market without guaranteeing that the wealthier teams will spend the money that would have gone to the Royals and Pirates.

The free market system leads to the Yankees winning every year like they did in the 50s; the revenue sharing system incentivizes the Marlins to make money without trying. MLB and the MLBPA have tried to find a middle ground that is a virtual salary floor and they've come up with a method that might work for closing the final loophole around draft and international spending.

But cutting off the funds after 5 years of failure would seem to simply doom those teams to eternal ineptitude while, from the Union's perspective, taking potential employers off the market without guaranteeing that the wealthier teams will spend the money that would have gone to the Royals and Pirates.

The free market system leads to the Yankees winning every year like they did in the 50s; the revenue sharing system incentivizes the Marlins to make money without trying. MLB and the MLBPA have tried to find a middle ground that is a virtual salary floor and they've come up with a method that might work for closing the final loophole around draft and international spending.

They're doomed to eternal ineptitude now!

Again - I'd reconfigure to do some sort of year to year thing... meaning, whether you qualify for revenue sharing in any given year is a function of rolling performance.

Revenue sharing has not helped the Pirates stop sucking. It's time to punish the organization.

Revenue sharing has perhaps helped the Rays and A's - probably not as much as just being well-run - but it encourages success.

Absent an NFL-esque share everything with everyone, pure 30 team split -- I just think that there does not need to be some mechanism that rewards the bottom 15 for making good use of revenue sharing, but punishes those who do not.

Those that consistently do not - my hope would be that if the spigot gets turned off - there's less incentive for bad owners to hang onto the team... put a good org in place that does things smartly - and again, examples of this certainly exist and you get a nice bonus.

The idea I always liked was to tie revenue sharing to wins. So instead of "small-market" (however that's defined) getting say 30 mil per year in bonus revenue, they get like 1 mil for every win over 55. Directly increase the marginal revenue value of a win for those teams.

24 - So the rich just get richer? You can't predict next year's record with enough accuracy to properly budget, a problem for small markets but not big ones. Smaller markets teams will have to err on the side of predicting worse records, while the Yankees, because MLB won't allow anyone else into NYC, can spend money wildly. They can afford to budget for 100 wins, and still be fine when they end up with 90. And now you're going to give them more money than anyone else on top of that.

As long as MLB isn't actually a free market, where the discretionary income in a team's protected "zone" can vary wildly from team to team, revenue sharing has to be tied to that discretionary income.

The problem with revenue sharing is they leave it to the teams how to spend the money. Revenue sharing should be limited to pay salaries over 50 million. So if you have a 30 million credit, you only get to use it fully if your payroll hits 80 million. If your payroll is 50 million, you get nothing.

While that satisfies our inner conservative, how does a punished Pirates team ever improve? If you take away their revenue sharing, will they be forced to trade McCutchen? How would that be a good thing for the Pirates' success?

Now I kinda doubt the Pirates are really so poor that they couldn't still afford McCutchen but you get my point.

You achieve both goals by putting tighter accounting controls on the use of revenue -- i.e. make sure that the revenue sharing money isn't directly or indirectly going into Loria's pocket. Then Loria has no incentive to have a ridiculously low payroll.

But it would be counterproductive for me to go and sign Marco Scutaro and Shane Victorino to try and get to 82 wins.

Why would it be counterproductive unless these average players are blocking younger players? I assume you're going with the "if we really suck we get a better draft pick" argument. That just means that the performance incentives are screwed up. It should never be in a team's interest to intentionally field a worse team than they can (with appropriate adjustment for long vs. short-term success). That calls for "fixing" the draft-performance linkage in some way.

So there you go ... US and international draft order set by whatever market/revenue ranking you come up with, possibly with rotation/lottery among the bottom 5, bottom 10, etc. to determine ordering.

So, OK, the A's and Rays can never afford their stars when they become FAs ... but they are getting the pick of the best new talent, keeping their development pipeline going. Rich teams never get the cream of the amateur talent and the Cubs have no incentive to lose 100 games because it doesn't improve their draft position.

Isn't that really what we want? The smart poor teams -- the ones that can spot and develop talent -- succeed; the smart rich teams succeed but rarely get the benefit of a young Jeter or Cano; the dumb rich teams are stocked with overpriced mediocrities until they learn to not waste their resources; the Cardinals somehow keep doing what the Cardinals always ####### do. You would probably see the return of player sales, that wouldn't be good. And of course the thorny problem of deciding that market/revenue ranking but you've got that problem with revenue sharing too.

You still do revenue sharing by this marketing/revenue scheme -- possibly less than is done currently. As the A's and Rays build perennial powerhouses, their attendance and other local revenues finally start to creep up and they continue to get the same revenue sharing money and can start to sign a few of their FAs.

Unfortunately Loria can still bottom-feed (barring other penalties) but at least there would be no penalty for him succeeding so he might as well try to win as many as possible every year.

30/ptodd - how do you force a team to spend a minimum amount. The A's just made the playoffs without getting to 80 mill. There are rebuilding teams that should be playing young (cheap) guys to see who is the future. The astros couldnt spend their way to even 70 wins, why should we force them too?

And i like walt's plan, but get rid of draft slotting. Give the rays, etc, first shot at that top prospect but let the market determine where he ultimately goes

In the end, the tax on the bottom-feeders was dropped. But the revenue-sharing system is still changing in several important ways:

• If a team is receiving those big revenue-sharing bucks, it will no longer be allowed to spend that money on paying down debt, which has been a popular alibi over the years.

• Teams also now have to report specifically how they spent their revenue-sharing handouts to improve their big league team. No more generalities allowed.

• The union also pressed for, and got, a new rule that directly connects revenue-sharing money to big league payroll. So if you're getting revenue-sharing checks, the payroll of your 40-man roster now has to be at least 25 percent larger than the amount you're receiving. In other words, if your revenue-sharing check is for $40 million, your big league payroll needs to be at least $50 million. If it isn't, Weiner said, "you have the burden of proving you're in compliance" with the rule requiring that money to be spent on improving the major league team. In the past, that burden fell on the union.

I don't think that quite works because it would make Oakland a "large market" team that doesn't qualify for revenue sharing. It also doesn't include Toronto.

Oakland is listed among the "large market" teams that do not qualify for revenue sharing. However, they were given special dispensation in the new CBA that they will remain eligible for revenue sharing re-distribution until their stadium situation is resolved.

I certainly take your point, Walt -- and my intent is NOT to deprive the Pirates (or more accurately Pirate fans) of McCutchen...

However, under the sop model - they were losing the McCutchens even WITH no strings attached revenue sharing.... now - in some cases (trading Brian Giles for Bay and other stuff, for example) - it's actually a good thing TO 'lose' that star.

The idea is that a good, well-run organization that is good at finding and developing talent is given some additional tools (in the form of success rewards) to keep that talent... it's the difference between rewarding the lottery winner (because every team finds their occasional star) and rewarding the teams that work hard and right, with a cohesive plan, and allowing them more room to further than plan.

Small market teams are giving a hand in navigating that path to success -- but there's a limit whereby they only continue to get that subsidization if they demonstrate appropriate use of that helping hand. I don't want NFL-style parity -- but I do want to normalize to a certain extent the market differences that might otherwise be insurmountable. If the Yankees are well-run - they're always going to have an advantage... I just want a playing field where the Rays can compete - even if that means that they have to be a bit more well-run - rather than pure handouts. Oh, and I also want the Cardinals to be hamstrung in every way possible, but I haven't the foggiest clue how to bake that into a CBA. Maybe they ought to share their wins?

...and I should note - I do think the Pirates are becoming a poor example, as I do think they're on the right track and actually have a core that I wouldn't mind having.

Unfortunately Loria can still bottom-feed (barring other penalties) but at least there would be no penalty for him succeeding so he might as well try to win as many as possible every year.

Just to reiterate, the CBA does have penalties for such bottom feeding. I have no idea how Loria or Crane can possibly expect to avoid significant sanctions this year. (Though I haven't read up on the precise mechanism for allotting sanctions, so maybe they have an out.)

#26 Mike Jones' study on market size is in my opinion still the best starting point. Even though it's dated (includes Montreal instead of Washington and some demographics have changed)

One of the important things he did was consider secondary markets. So the Yankees also got 40% of Hartford. St. Louis got a big of Memphis.

The big change would be Baltimore. Mike credited them with 75% of the Washington market which gave them the 8th largest market in total. With a much smaller chunk of Washington they'd drop well down the list.

#27 Mike got Oakland as #24 (and the Giants as 19. He was convinced by locals that the Giants had certain structural advantages in the San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose market (Mike had the As40% of the #5 market + 30% of Sacramento/Stockton/Modesto -- the #22 market)

The rule in the CBA is that 40-man payroll spending must be at least 125% of revenue sharing, pending demonstration that money not spend on the 40-man roster is going to real baseball costs. (Debt service does not count.)

I believe there should be some across the board revenue sharing just because the Yankees and Dodgers can't make money without some other team to play against. It's the teams in that "small" bucket that have structural economic issues (rust belt) that keep them from growing.

One good way to spend the MLB revenue sharing $$ would be to help get Oakland and Tampa new stadiums and get them off the dole.

The rule in the CBA is that 40-man payroll spending must be at least 125% of revenue sharing, pending demonstration that money not spend on the 40-man roster is going to real baseball costs. (Debt service does not count.)

Right. I want to include central fund revenue too.

If you get $40M from central revenue and $30M from revenue sharing, you should be spending $70M on payroll and other talent acquisition.

The idea is that a good, well-run organization that is good at finding and developing talent is given some additional tools (in the form of success rewards) to keep that talent... it's the difference between rewarding the lottery winner (because every team finds their occasional star) and rewarding the teams that work hard and right, with a cohesive plan, and allowing them more room to further than plan.

I think we all get it and I think we're all in agreement. But punitive mechanisms aren't panaceas.

Take the Rays. For their first 10 years, they won 70 games or fewer. They'd have been punished for ineptitude -- which likely means Sternberg never buys them, Friedman never gets hired and they never become the Rays we know today. And those early Rays teams did spend -- quite a bit on whichever draftee that was who got declared an FA, Vinny Castilla, etc. -- they just spent very badly.

The penalties in the new CBA are interesting but ... are we sure they don't just drive Loria to set a payroll so low that he doesn't need the revenue sharing money, he just gets by on central revenue (not the same thing as revenue sharing) and local revenue? If you give me $40 M but force me to spend $50 M on players, I might as well just spend $10 M on players. Plus I suspect we will see the bottom feeders magically sitting at 125% payrolls, pocketing all their central revenue. I'm probably more in favor of Snapper's #48. That essentially means that all profit/discretionary spending is from local revenues.

The goal is to make sure that winning 60 games with a $30M payroll is never more profitable than winning 75 games with a $60M payroll.